Underwhelmed (thankfully) by Hurricane Ike

Living near the Metroplex area for several years has not diminished my memories of growing up in Houston and living through several hurricanes. So it's been lovely today to be completely underwhelmed by the forces of Ike. Apparently, the west side of a hurricane is the "clean" side, so we only got a bit of rain- I doubt it was even an inch of water- and a bit of wind, but nothing to get too uptight over.

My parents, however, are retired and living in another state altogether now. They are not sad that they don't have to spend another moment tracking storms and boarding up windows to prepare for the gale force winds and the occasional flying yard ornament or wayward limb. Unfortunately, they happen to be on the "dirty" side of the storm and are still expecting wind, rain and tornados until sometime tomorrow. Ike was a huge storm.

I probably lived through more hurricanes and tropical storms than I actually recall, but I do have vivid memories of a few.

Hurricane Alicia hit days before I started kindergarten. I remember falling asleep in my own bed and waking up in a sleeping bag in the hallway. During a hurricane, the hallway is supposedly the safest place, seeing as how basements don't really work in land areas at sea level. Because of the flooding and all. A basement might become more like an indoor pool if someone so much as spits in the street.

During Alicia, I remember watching the storm out of the back sliding glass door. And witnessing a large tree in our yard fall towards the house, narrowly missing my house. And me.

I also remember my first day of kindergarten (I was an afternoon attender back when kinder was 1/2 day) when my dad and his buddy were working to cut some limbs off part of the fallen tree. Somehow, in all their tree limb cutting expertise, they managed to land a limb on a power line that supplied electricity to our house. They needed some rope to pull the limb off, so they decided it would be safe to leave the limb on the power line while they ran to the store for more supplies. While they were gone, the limb caught on fire and my mom and I had to run down to the neighbors house to call the fire department. And the first day of my school career was immortalized in my mind. Thanks to Hurricane Alicia.

Fast forward a few years and another hurricane that started with a C blew through. If my memory serves me correctly (and chances are it doesn't) the hurricane's name was Clarissa. But on a google search for Hurricane Clarissa, all I could come up with were some vague yet nerdy references to Jurassic Park. Since I'm not current on JP trivia, I'm pretty sure this isn't where I came up with the name, but I could still be wrong on what the storm was actually called.

Actually many of the details of this storm are fuzzy. I just remember "hunkering down" at my childhood friend Olivia's house. Her mom, who was an artist, showed us how to make salt-dough ornaments and we spent the day baking and painting. But where were my own parents? My mom worked at a hospital and probably had to go in, as was usually the case in inferior storms. But my dad? I don't remember if he was working nights at the time.... If so, my parents probably felt I was safer being in a home where the adult was actually going to be conscious during the day. If he worked days, did he have to go in? To the railroad? In a hurricane? Doubtful, but stranger things have happened.

Most recently, in 2001, Tropical Storm Allison dumped buckets on Houston, moved out and then got ticked off about the Houston humidity or traffic or mosquitoes the size of small birds and turned back around and dumped more rain on the area. Because my mom assured me that nary a drop of rain had fallen all day, I packed my bags one Friday and made the 4 hour drive to H-town for the weekend. When I arrived just north of Houston, the rains had begun (for the 2nd time around) and I-45 was shut down. I was terrified that I was going to be whisked away in my car by rising flood waters. Fortunately, I was able to make it to an exit where I turned around and headed back to Dallas. 9 hours after starting my journey I was home. With little recollection of the actual drive back north.

I do know that my memories of hurricanes do not even compare to the devastation that many have experienced firsthand from Katrina, Rita, Ike, and others. Our prayers are with all those who have been affected by the storm this weekend! Stay safe and dry everyone!

Because I'm pumped full of caffeine

It's after 2AM on Saturday morning. I had a terribly long and terrible week with too much work and a spiteful cold. Despite my busyness and sickness, my house managed to cling to its filthiness until I could tackle some chores this evening. How patient and thoughtful my home is. And how quickly my mother-in-law will be arriving tomorrow. Now my mother-in-law is a delightful person and has never ever once criticized my lack of housekeeping prowess. However, she herself is the goddess of good organization and housekeeping skills. She inspires me. To get my house straight before she gets here. So that I'm not too embarrassed. Knowing that I needed to get alot of chores done tonight, I dosed myself up on caffeine. 2 cups of coffee. At 10PM.

So now it's nigh the break of dawn. OK, the break of dawn is still several hours away. Whatever.
The point is, it's waaaay too late for me to be awake when my kids are going to be the ones to pay for it when they hop out of bed at around sunrise. Fighting and yelling, to be sure. And I'm oh-so-pleasant on mere minutes of sleep.

But I'm still surfing the 'net, following the impending approach of Hurricane Ike, and browsing blogs. And I just discovered that my friend Denyse added the Cutest Layout Ever to her blog! And since I rarely have an original thought, I figured I'd just locate her source and get my own adorable layout. But since my computer is running on reserve battery power, and because I should totally be sleeping right now, a new blog layout will have to wait. I'm just hoping my blog posts don't disintegrate, explode or spontaneously combust in the change-over. I just wanted to give everyone fair warning. I hope I don't destroy the whole realm of blogging when I add a layout. Wish me luck! And sleep. Wish me sleep more than luck. Thanks.

Oh, and also thanks to Denyse, I'm considering adding one of those cutesy blog things where you do a regular "theme" post once a week. Like "Wisdom Wednesday" or "Thrifty Thursday." Any brilliant suggestions? I told you I'm not original...

A Stitch in What Saves What??

So I've been woefully neglectful of my blog as of late. Honestly, with the move, transitioning into a new job, new schools for the entire family, and an entirely new routine which requires me to actually arrive at my place of work 5 FULL DAYS A WEEK and DO WORK, I haven't been able to muster the energy to put any type of words together to form sentences to form paragraphs to document the anecdotes that make up my life.

In other words, I've been too stinkin' tired to blog and I haven't been able to think of a single minutely interesting thing to say.

Until tonight. I had an epiphany. Or rather, a hypothetically humiliating experience and some cry for attention within me feels that I needed to lay my embarrassment out there for all the free world. It's cathartic, what can I say?

Tonight I had to go to Target for just one item, but found myself perusing the women's clothing section. Heck, I was away from the house childless and with my husband's blessing (for I was to return home with Baskin Robbins!). I took full advantage. I spied a cute dress on a hanger and picked it out in a size that my idealistic side was wishing would be too large for me, but my practical side knew better. I carried it into the fitting room, and chose a room with a suspicious odor. Unfortunately, I didn't notice the odor until it was too late, if you know what I mean. Too late, like I was wishing I hadn't even taken my shoes off.

I tried to ignore the odor (or at least pretend like it wasn't what it smelled like) and I tried on the dress. Now- what comes over women (by women, I mean "me" but I just pray I'm not the only one who does this) when they try on clothes that, once they get started with the "trying on" process, they become acutely aware that the garment in question is obviously too small, yet they insist on attempting to get said garment on completely- is this to further torture oneself and one's self-image by seeing how utterly terrible one looks in ill-fitting clothing? I don't know why, when we see the objective going south, we don't just abort the mission and later claim we never had any knowledge of said clothes. But, hypothetically speaking, I was determined to get that dang dress on, come hell or high water.  And it didn't fit.  Clearly.

However, the worst is yet to come.  Removing a dress that's too small is a feat to be feared.  If anyone has ever experienced that moment of panic when you realize the clothing (that doesn't even belong to you) isn't coming off without a fight, let me get an "Amen."  Amen.  

Now it was woman against inanimate object.  So I'm in a foul-smelling dressing room wrestling with a dress with my arms flailing in the air and the skirt of the dress covering my face in an attempt to suffocate me and thus declare itself the winner of the UFC match this evening. Drastic times called for drastic measures.  I yanked and pulled and finally cleared my airways of nylon.  Once my brain and muscles responded to the fresh air, I was back in the game.  Stitches may or may not have popped in my attempt to free myself and save my life.  Seams may or may not have torn apart.  Once I was dressed in my own clothes, I may or may not have hung the dress back on the hanger and returned it silently to the friendly lady handing out numbers for the fitting room.    

To soothe my wounded emotions from the painful Project Dress Removal, I continued on to Baskin-Robbins for the aforementioned ice cream.  But I think I'll be starting Weight Watchers tomorrow.         

People

Today I feel I can really appreciate that credit card commercial (American Express?) where Ellen DeGeneres wants to go to Beyonce's (do I need 2 apostrophes there to emphasize the 'e' in Beyonce' AND demonstrate possession? No clue. Anyway...) concert but can't find her "people" to talk to Beyonce's "people" to get the tickets or something.

We've been in Waco for one full whirlwind of a week. I haven't had much time to really put on the brakes. I've been working all week. Micah got into a private school which started Tuesday and we were not prepared at all for such a quick transition (surprise!). We've still had a ton of unpacking to do and errands to run. Thankfully, my wonderful mom stayed with us to help around the house and help take care of the little ones on Thursday and Friday b/c Jason has been gone.

But today my mom left, Jason is still gone (but he'll be home soon!), the kids are napping and the house is silent (which is NOT very golden right now). I'm left with an unexpected feeling of sadness mixed with a touch of panic. The only feeling I can compare it to is the feeling that you get when you take your newborn baby home from the hospital and no one else is around to help you take care of it. I can remember being a new mom and wrestling with a weird feeling commonly known as "baby blues" when your hormones are still adjusting and you cry over mundane things like sitting down for dinner or changing the TV channel. To compound the sad feeling, there's the panicky feeling that you're all alone with a tiny creature that you have no experience dealing with. And there's no longer anyone else around to help you deal with it. It's lonely and unsettling when you don't have "people."

And today, with this being the 1st time I've had to be completely alone, I'm missing my "people." As much as we were dissatisfied with our old town, we still had "people." Friends, family, friends who were like family... "people." Community. It was comfortable. Here, we have no people. And it's quiet and lonely.

I think we'll find some "people" here eventually. I know it's only been 1 week, as opposed to 5 (LONG) years. But for today I long for my "people."

Tag Team, Back Again!

After about a week of old-fashioned living (read: no TV and no internet), I've finally rejoined the 21st century! We haven't had much access to the outside world o' info since we moved on Saturday. I almost felt the inclination to start churning my own butter and weaving textiles on a loom. Not that I actually own a loom or butter churn (thank goodness- that would have just been 2 more items to haul 200 miles!) but it's quite unappealing to be without modern technological conveniences. But once again we're hooked up to the World Wide Web! I'll hopefully be posting more regularly. There's so much to tell!

Overheard

Cade has some moderate hearing loss due to chronic fluid build up in his ears. We used to think it was selective hearing until we actually had his hearing tested and then felt guilty for all the times we got on to him when he said he didn't hear us tell him to do something. So he had tubes put in his ears last Tuesday. The audiologist who originally tested his hearing said that "we don't suspect it's a progressive hearing loss" which was actually not something I had considered until she actually suggested it. Hopefully he will regain his hearing once his some of the fluid is allowed to drain. That's why what I overheard the other day is so funny...

On Sunday morning, 5 days post-surgery, Jason was bathing Cade and I heard this conversation:

Jason: "Cade, can you hear better now that you have your tubes in?"

Cade: "What?"

Jason (considerably louder): "Can you hear better now that you have your tubes in?"

Cade: "Oh! Yeah."

Uhhh, sure. Let's hope for the best!

Unrelated Thoughts

Just some stuff we've got going on:

*Our house was visited by The Plague this week. Not the actual Black Plague of course. Otherwise you might have seen us on the news or something. Or attended our funerals. No, just a pesky keeps-the-kids-feeling-crummy Plague. Now that I think about it, it's been quite pleasant (except for the 7:00 AM wake-up call I got yesterday when Micah threw up in his bed. There's nothing quite like being jolted out of a dead sleep to clean up vomit. Nothing like it at all.)

Micah had it the worst- mostly he just ran fever. Cade has been under the weather, but it's hard to tell if it's because 1) he had The Plague, 2) he was feeling bad due to the adenoidectomy he had on Tuesday or 3) he's really a couch potato at heart and was taking advantage of me so that I'd let him lay around on the couch and watch endless hours of Noggin, PBSKids, and Toon Disney. This is maybe the most probable possibility. Piper has been healthy and hasn't even considered ceasing her favorite activities of Putting Small Toys in Her Mouth and Getting into Everything She isn't Supposed To. Oh, and Pulling Things Out of the Trashcan. If these were competitions, she'd be a gold medalist!

*Tonight we enjoyed watching the Opening Ceremonies while inhaling some Chinese food take-out. Or, as the Chinese call it, just food. I thought it was quite an impressive show, albeit rather long. It will be interesting to see how all the competitions and politics play out over the next few weeks. My children had better brace themselves- there will be no cartoon reruns the next couple of weeks. Just the Olympics.

*We made pretty great progress packing the house today! It only took us about 2 1/2 hours to clean off our computer desk- no lie! The amount of papers we have amassed and ignored over the last few years was... well, let's just say we haven't saved any trees. Then we boxed up all the random stuff shoved in our closets from the last 5 years and I pulled the stuff off the walls in Piper's room. Except for a shelf that I couldn't figure out how to take down. Because it's SCREWED INTO THE WALL. Thanks for that bit o' info, Jase.

It just really irritates me how the house can look so much messier as we go through and box stuff up. We end up with so much random crap laying around. Then, I end up spending time trying to organize the mess. Who says I can't prioritize?

*I'm up way too late writing this. My final words: USA, USA, USA!!!!!